I’m keeping a lookout! Occasionally there’s a slight difference in the layout of some scenes, but it’s hard to know if it’s from changes or just from taking a different character path. You having much luck?
It’s been months since I last looked. And I should have kept some notes or something. Couldn’t even remember who “Stone” was until I saw the word “Revolution” somewhere.
That being said, I’ll never forget Charm: 4 > everything else. 
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Good times and a lot of fun!
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Yeah I tried all the combinations and I couldn’t find anything. Either I’m too thick between the ears or it’s been fixed.
nah i tried winters and it still happen
What exactly is the bug?
when talking to Aichinger about whether to summon Padre Carlos.
@jasonstevanhill Further to the above, there’s a couple of timeline issues. Since this is 1829 it’s a little early for Paganini, who was still in the process of establishing himself and, waited until the 1830s before publishing his scores. A better placement would be Étienne Méhul, who was an important composer during the French Revolutionary and Bonaparte period and had died in 1817. And perhaps a better man for the slightly old fashioned character to call the “pinnacle of music” would be Haydn not Mozart. He had the luxury of living a long life, composing a great deal and being one of the first composers to have his music repeatedly performed in the years after its premiere.Such as the oratorio ‘The Creation’. He also enjoyed the adulation of his fellow composers for decades after, so much so that in his lifetime (and in the couple of centuries until the present day) he was dumbed ‘Papa Haydn’ as the father of classical music.
My other problem comes with the St Louis servant. There is one extreme where the servant is pushed to the point where he has the character murdered, but there should be another side to all this, where the character has to opportunity to care about the servant’s well being and get to the point where there’s a form of friendship there. One can learn the servant’s past, their opinions and so on. Perhaps a weakness of the game is that, particularly in St Louis, the narration gets a bit stronger, more opinionated and there’s less room to hear from the characters. People like the priggish Mafi from Haiti, Becard, Harding and so on are here to argue and give different perspectives, and the game is at its finest when these people give their views and the character can then respond in his own way. Rather than the narration giving out the law like some sort of amorphous Moses, out of the character’s reach.
I’d much prefer talking to Becard about Plessy than hearing the narrator and getting one’s stats adjusted without interacting with the characters themselves.
This also seems a good point to ask the character why he won’t tell Withers about the rumours. Rather than just writing it off as nothing. There should also be that option to say he wants to investigate further first.
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@jasonstevanhill Looks like this glitch is back again.
EDIT:
Also, why not allow a French slave to learn how to speak English in the random selection at the end of the character creation? If there’s an option where an owner can let the young character practise the piano, there should be a possibility where a French owner teaches his slave English, whether out of boredom, or because it would help him in his business dealings or something like that? Like Broomhilde having been taught German in Django Unchained.
And surely it should be possible to have learned something of accounting without the prerequisite of literacy. After all some slaves and plenty of shopkeepers and the like, throughout the ages, would have been numerate, sometimes to a great standard, for business reasons and trading and all the rest of it, without having learned their letters. You even allow that in the case of the Yankee businessman who knows his numbers, but not his letters.
And I can also see a way to bring back being able to learn Spanish in the building relations with different vampires in New Orleans, in a fair way. Rather than making it as a free point surely one could have a relationship requisite where one would have to be so friendly with Estefania before she would assent to teach it? Otherwise the request would be rebuffed and it would fail. Like with attempting a lot of other things in the game without having the required competency first. It can also be a good chance for learning English from one of the characters, again with one’s friendship with a given character having to be at a particular level for them to agree.
It’s very hard to joggle relations with all three of the New Orleans vampires as it is, it’s almost impossible to get the favoured child of New Orleans status for instance, so I think the checks are there for the point to be earned fairly, without it just being handed to the character.
Another question is would the Spaniard character feel an affinity with America either? As you write in your description the community were paid to stay as a buffer by the Spanish Viceroy and kept to themselves, away from everyone else. I know the Spaniards would hate the British, and the Pirate Dominus helped the Americans out, but I don’t think they’d like the Americans too much either. In fact we know he didn’t with the Jackson Square business.
And also the Irishman character, just off the boat from Europe, I think the only European playable character too, might not feel particularly American either and might have something funny to say (with ‘the gift of the gab’) in response to what Maffi says.
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Couple of things I noticed on my last playthroughs that I thought didn’t make sense.
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When Silas dies you can choose to keep his harmonica and the letter but the harmonica isn’t among your possessions.
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On my Spanish character walkthrough I got the “memories, memories” achievement in St.Louis but then I realized my character didn’t even speak English when she wrote the song so how did it became so widespread among English speakers.
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On another playthrough in St.Louis my criminal character offered a debt to Aichinger to get him to back of of Slattery. Later on I got the “if you want to live” achievement. I think getting Aichinger out of the theater after he broke the masquerade should be enough to get rid of that debt.
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Feeding choice screen in Memphis has an “on second thought” option that lets you keep the habit you already have but this isn’t an option in St.Louis. I noticed it after I misclicked and had to restore a checkpoint.
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It seems there are only a few ways to learn about stakes, either you try to feed on Jackson and ask about it to either Jesse or Estefania or learn it from Carothers when you are trying to get Hugh Gallagher bounty. I think learning it from Carothers should be an option when Wilson is turned by Withers also.
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Yeah, and it seems like a good idea, if the stake knowledge has been learned from pulling one out of Dido, to have the option to use it to send Wilson back to Withers. As you say it’s a bit crap otherwise.
@jasonstevanhill Also it’s not possible to ask Ashmore about Memphis debt relief unless one asks Carothers, even when one learns about her involvement from Malloy or from Withers.
Edit: Also when he asked if the character knows about the Freeman’s Bank, I think the financially minded character would know more than vague rumours, perhaps even be able to offer some opinions about its solvency.
Also, I think instead of ‘Ms Bjornsdotter’ the character would probably say Madam/Madame Bjornsdotter. The prefix was all the range at the time particularly for an independent woman of great means who was very often a foreigner. Of course she goes on to correct the character, but I think that would be the character’s first instinct.
The dialogue with Esterfarnia is also left open-ended at the fair.
Finally, if one has just one point in the Creation skill, could learning the harmonica from Silas allow one to get another point in creation? Learning the piano qualifies for one skill point in New Orleans after all. Same with asking the Spaniard about his guitar in St Louis.
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Especially if you know that only governors are allowed to order an execution.
I was actually surprised when it didn’t happen in the game.
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@jasonstevanhill Another thing that needs remedying is the lack of a weapon for the West confrontation. It’s possible to get silver bullets but unless one becomes Tribune and chooses the weapon option, the character doesn’t have a firearm or any other type of weapon. Unless he goes to persuade Sabine to not go after West, changes his mind and then a gun appears. Seems a bit ridiculous to have gone to the trouble of researching silver and getting silver bullets and also getting mortals with torches only to charge at West with bare fists.
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I didn’t realized it until you pointed it out but the first order of business for a Tribune, especially one charged with hunting a Beast, should be to get some sort of weapon.
To be fair, those bare fists might transform into claws if you play your cards right.
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That’s if you decided staying away from civilization to learn it
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My point with the “Five police officers, plus untold number of neighbors…” was that a physical confrontation would be a massive breach of the Rule of Reserve. Sure, if your fighting skillz were high enough, you could take on the five cops, but everyone would see.
As for intimidating him, what’s the basis for doing so that doesn’t violate the Rule of Reserve? This is a corrupt cop with the weight of the state behind him. To me, the only way to intimidate him would be to use Charm, and that’s what that second #option is: dissuade him from his current course of action.
Yeah, I’m trying to build the sense of Slattery’s rise and fall. I’m open to suggestions on how to improve that.
That’s an interesting point. I don’t have an immediate answer. But you’re even more right in the case that the PC misses the sacrifice scene, which is entirely possible.
Should Maffi be so sure she can defeat Villanueva? The other potential quaestors don’t seem to be combat focused, but he’s likely to be a skilled fighter.
He is, but that doesn’t mean that she would flinch from standing up for herself.
That was a bug. Should be fixed in the next update.
Ok!
The periodicals of the time styled it with a V in all instances.
I only see one instance, which is now fixed.
Yeah, I studied French, Spanish, Latin, and Greek, but never German. Thanks!
That’s a great idea!
Yeah, I’m still mulling what to do with the Chiara romance.
Are you talking about first_intermission_kkk around line 56? I’ve added in an “or ethnicity = african” clause.
That’s a good idea.
There is very much a utility to having someone who knows how to play the piano: it’s nice to listen to. Yes, it may seem like it’s out of the kindness of the lady’s heart, but it’s very much to her benefit, not yours.
Teaching a slave English does not have nearly the utility, imo.
You are correct.
Sure. 
Fixed!
I’ve added a sloppy fix.
Done.
I actually don’t know what you’re talking about. They both follow the same structure, where you are reminded what you like, and then given the opportunity to change.
I disagree. The Plague-Bearer misses Dido’s heart, so it doesn’t do anything to her. Therefore, there’s nothing really to learn.
I suppose I could check to see if you’d met Jackson, and then seen the PB’s stake, and that would prompt you to ask Carothers? But that would be too late to use against the PB in that scene.
Great suggestion.
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Yeah I get what you mean. And I like the exposure thresholds for that reason, because it leads to a nasty shock if we get a little too blase. That said, there’s a few occasions where one can ‘unleash the beast’ with a load of mortals around, and then there’s follow up scenes where this display of vampiric power can be mitigated somewhat.
So I suppose, if ‘showing a bit of fang’ or unleashing a snarl isn’t possible, a sharp word of warning from the character to Slattery might be an option. Having 4 strength must affect the character’s appearance, right? Then an element of the follow up scene could be trying to get Bailey or someone like that to smooth things over, at the cost of a big favour. Since the policeman ‘does have the weight of the state’ but both Bailey and Aichinger have their resources to go over his head if they were so inclined. Really something else apart from doing nothing, killing him later on or making insurance payments.
Exactly, I get how it would be hard to get a silver sword, silver bullets. All those checks make sense. But there’s enough guns about that once one has the silver bullets, one can easily get a gun to fire them.
Always the opportunity cost, you’re right.
Edit: Replies to Jason:
English periodicals I’m assuming? I had a quick look now and you’re right about the English language newspapers, but certainly, as a first generation German immigrant himself, he never would have written his name that way. Nor do I suspect any first generation German would either, German language newspapers in St Louis or anyone else raised with German as his mother-tongue. But I suppose anglicising everything isn’t particularly new.
Nor would von der Ahe. It’s like capitalising and/of and so on. It just looks wrong.
Further thought: Thinking about it, if the character had an interest in defending German culture and so on, that could be a small thing to bring in. German newspapers should write in the German way etc. And maybe if Aichinger was a grammar n- grammatically pedantic fellow he might mention it off hand as one of the things that annoys him.
The one in the 1892 panic section? Great.
So if I understand, only a black character living in the Beale district gets to hear the rumours about a Klan attack? Some of the code is a bit hard to follow for me I’m afraid.
I will never let it be said that you haven’t done your homework.
I believe he means that where usually when one clicks on the other feeding options, a list comes up and in previous installments of the game, one can then decide to keep feeding from the same kind of people after all. But in St Louis this isn’t there. One either has the choice to look for something else to feed or decide to stick with the original choice.One can’t click on the options and then say “I’m sticking with so-and-so.”
I take your point. What about learning it from an English speaking slave? Or depending on the severity of the owner, being allowed time to earn money on the side and picking it up from someone else.
And while teaching a slave the piano to show off to friends and the like might be a more likely thing, I could see some possibility of teaching a slave child another language just for the novelty value. “Oh look what my slave can do, they can speak English or whatever!” As sort of a strange status symbol thing. Just as a sort of oneupmanship thing over their friends to somehow show they had better quality slaves.
Further to all this, could there be a way into investigating the cults, inside from starting one’s own?
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A further idea I had was for the piano scene during the Governor’s visit, where if the character was from Appalachia and didn’t play the piano, he could offer to sing a hoedown song instead. I’m not sure what the metrics could be for this. But since an Appalachian character can be welcomed into the Appalachian neighbourhood with a few songs at some public gatherings, it could be an interesting alternative, particularly if the character only has one creation point.
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That doesn’t really seem suitable for the venue.